Considering Il Mattino are the local Naples newspaper, their coverage of Jorginho potentially leaving Napoli in the summer has been rather minimal.
Looking back through our archives, they’ve only covered an exit twice before, first last summer when Bournemouth (yes, we know) allegedly put €20m on the table for the Italy international, followed by one article back in March where they claimed Manchester United had been ‘preparing an important offer for some time’.
Since then, it’s mostly been Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport who have been pushing the exit angle, with price of at least €40-50m being mentioned.
However, Il Mattino believe the starting price is a bit lower, as they write ‘Jorginho will not move for less than €30m’.
At that price, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a couple more clubs get involved alongside Manchester United and Manchester City.
The rumours weren’t exactly helped on Thursday by Joao Santos, the player’s agent, who admitted to talking to most big teams in England about his client without actively stating the midfielder would be leaving.
He was just, how do we put this, testing the waters.
In England, the general consensus appears to be that Manchester City are in the lead to sign Jorginho, with Pep Guardiola having made the defensive midfielder one of his priorities for the summer.
At €30m in this current market, this is probably the bargain of the summer, and it’s most likely way too good to be true.
Aurelio de Laurentiis, Napoli’s president, is a man who likes making life difficult when it comes to selling players, so if he believes Kalidou Koulibaly is worth around €80m, you can expect him to try and get a whole lot more than €30m for his star midfielder.
